Because you’re not enough. You’re worthless and no one could ever love someone as stupid as you.
I shake the voice from my head and push those thoughts deep down. My omega needs me right now. He needs what our bond, what our matching provides because it really is soothing him. BecauseI’msoothing him.
Slowly, I start to rock again, wrapping my arms tightly around Nikolai as I start to purr. His hand at my back flattens, his fingers flexing against the muscle as the sound grows louder, his palm on my neck sliding down over my throat until it stills in the center of my chest.
He keeps his nose pressed against me as I feel the collar of my shirt grow wet, Nikolai’s tears resuming despite the way his body relaxes in my embrace.
I close my eyes as my head tips back against the wall, sighing as I think about how this goes against everything I’ve been feeling lately.
Not about my omegas, never about them.
The bonds we share, my love—if I can call it that—is far too strong and that means how I think or feel will never change.
It’s everything that comes with those feelings that has me doubting myself more than I ever have.
I’m not good enough for them and I never will be.
I’ve allowed so much pain and hurt to happen to them when all I want to do is protect them and treat them the way they deserve.
Christ, I can’t even fucking talk to them without feeling like every syllable has the potential to damage their perfect hearts and beautiful souls.
I wasn’t meant to be anything more than a mindless monster, one used and abused until that was all I knew.
Then I found Olive.
She changed me, changed how I thought and what I knew. Then she did it again when she brought me to my other omega.
Both changed me for the better, that’s what I want to believe, but at the end of the day, it can’t rewire nearly four decades of being told otherwise.
Of beingshownotherwise.
“Niko!”
My eyes snap to the busted doorway as a pain-filled cry and heavy footsteps come racing down the hall.
“Niko! Rune!” Olive yells as she skids past the entrance, nearly falling into the twisted metal before she’s righted by the redhead beta. “Oh my god.”
Tears instantly spill from her pretty eyes as she drops to her hands and knees, crawling toward us as quickly as possible.
It isn’t a huge bathroom, not to me anyway, but by the time Olive reaches us, she’s practically sobbing as she climbs into my lap without hesitation.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as she scoots around until she’s able to cling to both of us. “I am so sorry.”
Nikolai drags his forehead along my throat until he’s facing Olive, the two tangled together in my arms, both leaning firmlyagainst my chest. She repeats her words again and again, chanting an apology I don’t think she owes anyone, and I close my eyes.
Her voice is soothing.
Soothing Nikolai.
It’s soothing to me.
It’s all I hear as I focus on their heartbeats, her words fading into the sound of a smoky whisper, one that drowns out everything but them.
I would happily drown in them. Let my omegas consume me until there was nothing left of who I am, only them and the bond we share.
“I hate to interrupt…”
I open my eyes to see the beta still standing in the doorway, on our side of the broken metal, staring at us in a way I don’t completely understand.
